


A Little Bit Of Night Music

by StormLeviosa



Category: Shazam! (2019)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Dreams and Nightmares, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Shazamily (DCU), obviously, superheroes have trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25114564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormLeviosa/pseuds/StormLeviosa
Summary: Darla gets nightmares sometimes but she's not the only one and her whole family is there to help her.That's what family's do, after all.
Relationships: Darla Dudley & Shazamily Members
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	A Little Bit Of Night Music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariel_astaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel_astaire/gifts).



> So this fic is for the lovely Ariel who asked for some wholesome family fluff. I hope I did a good job!

Darla gets nightmares. They don’t happen often - she’s normally so tired by the time she goes to bed that she sleeps straight through till morning - but sometimes she can’t shake the bad thoughts and her dreams are full of darkness and fear. Mostly she doesn’t remember them, waking up with her heart pounding and tears on her cheeks but no memory of why. Those are the good nightmares, the ones she can go back to sleep after and barely remember in the morning. Other times, she dreams of death, of blood, of screams and monsters and smoke and wakes up in a thrumming panic, halfway screaming and shaking so hard her bed creaks. On those nights, it’s impossible to sleep. She used to go to Rosa and Victor when she had bad dreams, when she was littler and couldn’t bear to be alone. Now, she knows how to keep a secret. She knows being a superhero (which is just. So. Cool!!) is the biggest secret she’ll ever keep, even more important than when it was just Billy, even more than what her parents told her when they left for the last time. She knows that she cannot tell Rosa and Victor about the nightmares without also telling them about Shazam. She wakes, and she shakes, and she cries, and she stays in her room. 

It’s dark in her room but she’s too old for a night light so she begs for fairy lights to hang in her room until Rosa cannot refuse anymore. She takes Mary with them under the guise of college shopping but really it’s a “girls day out”, she knows. The fairy lights are soft and warm and she loves them. They don’t stop the bad dreams but they stop her from being so scared when she wakes up.

She thinks Mary maybe knows. Mary’s older than the rest of them and knows so much more stuff and she’s Darla’s idol. She also shares their secret and, as the oldest, has a duty to keep them safe and happy. Darla makes sure to always give her a hug when she seems stressed, because Mary does so much for all of them. So when Mary gives her a library book on psychology and self care and how to help with nightmares, Darla knows she has to read it even if she struggles with some of the big sciencey words. It helps a bit. She knows how to calm down her racing heart now, how to ‘ground herself’ when she wakes up by counting things she can see and hear and feel and smell. It doesn’t stop the bad dreams coming but she thanks Mary all the same, with the huge grin she knows everyone loves, and a full body squeeze with all her - non-superpowered - strength. 

She can hear footsteps in the dark and they're coming closer and she can hear her breathes, harsh and panting, and she knows,  _ she knows,  _ she has to be quiet, quiet, quiet as a mouse or the monster will hear her, except that's a bad simile because mice are never silent: they squeak and their little claws scritch and skitter on the floor. And the footsteps have stopped except they're far too close and-

"Darla are you ok?" It's Billy and he's whispering but he's safe so she starts to whisper back "yeah, Billy," except it comes out cracked and weak and unconvincing. Billy opens the door a crack and she hugs her knees to her chest as he slips inside. He sits on the end of her bed. Up close, she can see dark shadows under his eyes and he looks sad, maybe even a little scared. She opens her mouth to ask what’s wrong, because it’s obvious that something is, but he beats her to it.

“Do you want to go up to the roof?” he asks and she nods.

He takes her hand and helps her up. The roof tiles are cold under her bare hands and feet but they’re not as slippery as she thought they’d be. They sit on the pointy part of the roof and don’t touch. That’s fine. Darla likes hugs after bad dreams, likes warmth and love and touch, but Billy doesn’t. He’s the first person Darla knows who hasn’t grown to love her squeezes. Rosa says it’ll come with time but sometimes she still sees him flinch when Freddie tries to fist bump him so she isn’t sure. He lets her sit next to him, close but not too close, and they look out over the city. It’s beautiful. Not as clear and bright as from the tops of skyscrapers, but the lights shine and the air is as fresh as it gets in the city. She can see why Billy likes it, and tells him so. There’s a soft smile on his face as he asks if she feels any better and a bigger one when she nods.

Billy must have told Freddie (he tells Freddie everything), because the next morning, he gives her an extra long hug before school and sneaks her an extra pudding cup. On the way to school, he chatters away to her about superheroes and she's sure bringing up how superheroes must be afraid all the time is intentional. She waves goodbye to him in the hallway and beams and makes sure to sit with him at lunch. Freddie likes to make her smile, she knows, even if he pretends she’s annoying. 

The next time she wakes up, when she stops shaking, she slips out of her room and tries to follow the route Billy took her on. She hits the bum step and hears someone start to move around as the creak echoes down the stairwell. A light flickers on downstairs. Darla stays very still and hopes whoever it is goes back to sleep. Darla isn’t very lucky. A phone torch bobs towards her and it’s Rosa. She sees Darla, sees the tears that Darla can still feel drying on her face, and her eyes soften.

“Oh, mi amor,” she whispers. “Did you have a bad dream?” Darla nods and Rosa folds her into her arms like she did when Darla was still tiny. “Where were you trying to go, mija?” she asks and Darla doesn’t know how to tell her that last time Billy took her up to the roof without getting Billy in trouble or accidentally telling Rosa about the nightmares that come more often than not sometimes. But she has to tell the truth. She’s always been a bad liar.

“Billy showed me how to get up to the roof and I thought maybe the stars would be out,” she says miserably as Rosa sways her back and forth.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, mi amor. It’s cloudy tonight, though. Maybe next time there’s a clear night we can go to the park and have a look. For now, let's go downstairs. I’ll make you hot cocoa.”

Rosa heats milk on the stove and swings Darla around in a happy dance while she hums along to the radio and Darla laughs. Victor pops his head in, sees Darla hop onto the counter as Rosa turns to stir the milk, and puts a finger to his lips. She hides a giggle as Victor sneaks up on Rosa and wraps his huge arms around her from behind to make her jump and laugh. Rosa shooes him away and he ruffles Darla’s hair as he leans against the counter next to her. Mary walks in with a textbook, glances at the clock, swears, pretends she didn’t when Rosa swats at her head, and slumps down at the breakfast table. She barely registers that Darla or Victor are there and it makes Darla hide a giggle behind her hand. Victor gently takes the book from her tired hands and folds the corner of the page over as he sets it on the table. It’s a physics textbook but that’s all she can tell from a distance. She wakes up a bit when Rosa drops the spoon in the sink and it clatters on the saucepan from dinner, but then so does Eugene in the room above (or maybe he was awake anyway; he seems plenty aware when he comes in with his game and headphones on).

They all have a mug of cocoa when Billy slinks in. He seems surprised to see them but Rosa smiles and hands him a mug and he leans against the corner to drink it. None of them speak. They all have their own problems but this time is not for that. This time is for family, and love, and calm. When the cocoa is gone, they’ll go back to bed and in the morning they’ll pretend it never happened, or maybe Rosa’ll ask if they’re all okay because she loves them too much to let them suffer alone. She’ll remind Mary not to stay up all night studying, Eugene to go to bed at a reasonable time, and Victor will tell Billy he’s always welcome to join them for little meetings like this. But that comes later. Now, they are all still and quiet and together and that is enough.


End file.
